Dead Time

by D. L. Orton

  She shuts her eyes and then covers her face with her hands.

  “If you had it all over,” I ask, “wouldn’t you try a little harder to make it work with my father?”

  She swallows. “Shannon, I…”

  I shake my head. “I love you, Mom, and I love Madders too.” I take a deep breath, steeling my courage, and look at the man who’s captured my heart. “But I love Peter more.”

  He stands there with his mouth stuck open.

  “He always expects the best of me,” I say. “When I’m with him, I feel strong and happy, more like the person I want to be. I know we don’t come from the same background, but that’s a strength, not a weakness. He doesn’t need to know about ancient history and all the classics because… well, because I already do. Every day I spend with him, I learn something new, something more important than the name of that dead white guy who lived in Sherwood Forest.”

  Mom’s eyes get really big.

  “Peter’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Mom. If he’s not going, then I’m not going either.” I set down my pack. “Period. End of conversation.”

  Mom crosses her arms—and then uncrosses them again.

  “Holy shit,” Peter says, swearing for the first time, in like, forever.

  Mom turns on her heel and addresses him in her sternest doctor voice. “I suggest you hurry and get your things packed, young man—assuming you feel the same way about my daughter?”

  He gulps and turns to me. “Do you really mean that, Shannon? The part about me making you strong and happy?”

  I nod. “Sometimes you can be infuriating, Peter, but I’d rather die than live without you.”

  “No need to overdo it,” Mom says. “We get the point. Peter?”

  “I packed everything last night, ma’am.” He glances at me, looking sheepish. “Just in case.”

  “Well…” Mom says, still recovering. “Good. Put it in the plane.”

  Peter takes off his bow and ties it onto his backpack and then looks over at me. “Once we get settled, Shannon, maybe we could invite Gran and all the women…” He lets go of his pack, leaning it against the boulder, and gets up. He walks in front of Mom, over to me, and takes my hand.

  I glance back and forth between his eyes, wondering what’s going on.

  And then he gets down on one knee.

  “Oh, my God, Peter, what are you doing?” I can feel my face getting hot.

  “Will you marry me, Shannon?”

  I stare at him—my heart stuck in my throat.

  “I mean properly this time.”

  I pull him up to his feet and throw my arms around his neck and kiss him right there in front of Mom. “Yes!”

  “Flee fornication! He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body!”

  Peter jerks around as someone in a battered biosuit walks out of the woods, a rifle aimed at us.

  “I will not have mercy upon her children, for they be the children of whoredoms.”

  “The Giver,” Peter whispers and runs for his bow.

  The woman fires the rifle, knocking Peter’s backpack down into the dirt. “You touch that bow, boy, and I’ll show you God’s wrath. They told me what you done to the Righteous, and I intend to see you pay for it.”

  Madders comes out from behind the airplane, hands in the air, another biosuit holding a gun to his back.

  “All we want is the boy,” the man says, shoving Madders up next to me. “That girl’s more trouble than she’s worth. You let us take Peter, and the rest of you can hop in that fancy airplane of yours and fly back to wherever you came from.”

  Peter turns. “Grizzly?”

  “He’s to be tried for murder,” the Giver of the Law says. “And stoned to death for his sins.”

  “No!” I rush toward Peter, but Madders grabs my arm and pulls me back, holding me so I can’t get away.

  “Stoned to death?” Mom says. “Is this some sort of joke?”

  The Giver points the rifle at Mom. “Let your women keep silence in the presence of God’s messenger.”

  “Take the boy and go,” Madders says, “but the girl belongs to us.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone!” I twist out of his grip and rush over to Peter, holding on to him as tightly as I can.

  “Shannon, no.” He tries to push me away. “Go with your mother.”

  I shake my head, refusing to let go.

  “On the wicked,” the Giver says, aiming the rifle at Peter and me, “He shall rain fire and brimstone. This shall be their lot.”

  Grizzly moves closer to us, keeping his gun trained on Madders, and turns his head toward the Giver. “You said we’d leave the girl.”

  “Changed my mind,” the woman says, speaking in her regular voice now. “Besides, she’s the one who started this whole mess.” She motions with her gun. “Let’s go, you two.” She glances over at Mom. “And just so’s you know, if I see anyone following us, I’ll shoot the girl first.”

  Madders brings his hands up to his head, his eyelids fluttering, and then collapses onto his knees.

  And then everything happens at once.

  “Run!” Peter shouts and lunges for Grizzly’s gun. The old man looks up at him, his eyes wide, but he doesn’t pull the trigger. Peter yanks the gun out of his hand and pushes him out of the way.

  The Giver’s rifle discharges, and Peter shoves me sideways and drops to the ground.

  I dive behind the rock and scramble toward his pack. I try to wrench his bow off, but my hands are like flippers, and it won’t come loose.

  A moment later, Mom is beside me. She grabs an arrow out of Peter’s pack and jabs it into Grizzly’s suit, poking a hole in the leg.

  Grizzly’s breach alarm goes off as Peter rolls away from him and fires the handgun at the Giver—and I realize that Peter’s shirt is covered in blood.

  “No!” I scramble across the dirt toward him.

  The Giver starts lumbering back into the woods, but her biosuit is big and bulky, and it’s like she’s moving in slow motion.

  There’s another gunshot, but this time it comes from Madders.

  He’s still on his knees in the dirt, one hand clutching his head and the other holding his gun. The Giver falls to the ground, and a few seconds later, we hear her breach alarm sound.

  Mom rushes over and takes the gun, holding it on Grizzly. “Put a patch on your suit.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t have no more.” He kneels down next to Peter. “I wasn’t going to let them hurt you, son. I wasn’t.”

  “There’s a spare rebreather in the plane!” Mom says, her eyes wild. “And bring my medical bag!”

  Peter looks up at Grizzly, the anger gone from his face. “Guess we found a way outta that collapsed coal mine after all.”

  The old man nods.

  “Shannon!” Mom shouts—and I finally realize she’s talking to me. “Get the rebreather mask and my medical bag!”

  I nod.

  “Hurry!”

  I run faster than I’ve ever run before.

  41

  For Pete’s Sake

  Lani

  Grizzly waves from the ground, his helmet held uselessly at his side, as Shannon accelerates past him and takes the plane up into the hazy sky.

  Good thing for Shannon’s masks or that old man would be dead—and it would be your fault.

  My stomach lurches as the plane banks hard and struggles to gain altitude.

  Madders suggested Shannon avoid flying low over the woods, and now I can see why. Hundreds of birds are taking to the air above the trees, filling the sky with a black fog.

  I peek around the seat and watch Shannon fly the plane, her knuckles white from gripping the controls so hard. Her lips are a thin line of determination, and her eyes are narrowed in concentration. She’s changed so much during our weeks apart that I barely recognize her.

  She’s a grown woman now, and it’s high time you started treating her like one.

  I resist the urge
to ask if everything’s okay.

  She glances at Madders, then me, and then the boy. Her jaw seems to set even more firmly in place.

  When we reach cruising altitude, Shannon locks in the GPS coordinates I gave her and sits back in the seat—but I can see that her hands are still trembling.

  “Lordy!” as Lucy would say. Treating a gunshot wound and a stroke victim while bouncing around in a single-engine Cessna piloted by a teenager who’s never flown a plane before and happens to be your daughter.

  What next?

  Shannon let’s out a shaky breath. “How’s he doing, Mom?”

  I rest my hand on her shoulder. “As well as can be expected, baby.” I see her cringe at the last word, and make a mental note to find a different pet name.

  I lean forward so I can see Madders. “You hanging in there?”

  He nods from the copilot’s seat but doesn’t open his eyes. His breathing is labored but steady.

  I need to get him back inside the mountain within four hours, or it’ll be too late for the tPA to help him.

  We’re going to be cutting it close.

  I check the pressure bandage on Peter’s shoulder and then adjust the pillow behind his head. I’m worried about shock, but there’s not much I can do besides keep him warm and comfortable. His pulse is slow, but steady, and I thank Pele that the low caliber bullet didn’t do any more damage.

  “Shannon,” I say, “when you get a chance, can you turn up the cabin heat, please? I want to make sure we don’t let Peter’s temperature drop too much.”

  “You got it, Mom.” She adjusts something, and I feel the warm air on my face. “Better?”

  “Yes, baby.” I chastise myself for calling her that and then redouble my efforts to make sure it doesn’t happen again. “You get us safely to Colorado, Shannon, and I’ll patch him up good as new.”

  She bites her lip, and I know she’s trying not to cry. “We should be there in about three hours,” she says. “How far is it from the airport to the mountain?”

  “If someone meets us at the Air Force base, the drive is about forty minutes. How soon will you be able to contact the Magic Kingdom?”

  “Not until we can see the mountain,” she says. “Maybe twenty minutes out.”

  I do the math. If the Magic Kingdom has to send down a jeep, we’ll have to wait for them to arrive. Add that to the ride back up the mountain, and it may be too late to give Madders the anticoagulant—assuming they even have it in the pharmacy. And a bumpy car ride isn’t going to help Peter either. He’s going to need blood—so we’ll have to do a blood type first—and morphine so I can remove the bullet and sew him back up.

  I go over the steps in my head, wishing I had another doctor to help.

  “Is there any way to cut down our flight time?” I ask Shannon. “Even twenty minutes would help.”

  She makes an adjustment and I hear the whine of the engine change.

  “I can’t push the engine any harder,” she says, “or we won’t have enough fuel. And if I take us up higher, we’ll save a little fuel, but it’ll cost us time.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Whatever you think is best. But the sooner we can raise them on the radio, the better.”

  The next few hours drag by, Peter’s pulse weakening and Madders looking the worse for wear.

  When we spot the first hint of mountains rising in the west, Shannon tries the radio, and ten minutes later, Jack’s voice floods into my ears.

  “They must have one whopper of an antenna,” Shannon says as we wait for Dr. Nadales.

  “They do,” I say, remembering the hike up to the summit and the massive tower. “At least something’s going our way today.”

  Dr. Nadales says she’ll send down a military helicopter to pick us up and will have the OR ready for Peter when we arrive. In the meantime, she’ll find a donor with O negative blood—a universal donor.

  “No one from the Bub is O negative,” I say.

  “Except Diego,” we say together.

  “And James,” she says. “I’ll have someone find him.”

  Jack comes back on and gives Shannon a weather report. She nods, taking in the temperature and wind speed, but I can tell she’s worried about landing the plane.

  “What’s your fuel situation, Shannon?” Jack asks.

  “The gauge is on empty,” she says, “but I think we still have enough to land.” She swallows. “And if not, I’m right above a freeway, following it all the way in now.”

  I resist the urge to swear out loud, and instead check the guys’ seatbelts and then my own.

  When we finally see the air force base, Shannon takes the plane lower, and by the time we’re lined up with the runway, we’re flying just above the treetops.

  When we’re over the runway, Shannon struggles with a lever on the dashboard.

  “Mookers! I can’t get the flaps down!”

  Before I have a chance to respond, the plane hits the runway hard—and then bounces back up into the air.

  “Damn it!” She gives up on the flaps and wrestles the plane back down. It hits hard again and skids around to the left, sliding toward the edge of the huge runway.

  “Rudder,” Shannon says and manages to straighten it out, but we’re still going really fast.

  I hold my breath as we bounce and skid down the runway.

  But Shannon doesn’t give up, and one long minute later, we’re taxiing over to the helicopter.

  The pilot gives Shannon a crisp salute—which she returns—and then he powers up the blades.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry!

  Shannon helps Madders into the chopper and then the two of us get Peter in. Seven minutes later, we help them onto gurneys and into the Magic Kingdom’s airlock.

  I check my watch. It’s been just over three hours since Madders collapsed and Peter was shot—not ideal, but much better than anything I could have hoped for.

  “Welcome back,” a woman says over the speakers. “This is Soleil Nadales. We have the OR ready, and Lucy is scrubbed and standing by.”

  “Do we have blood?”

  “Yes, two units of O negative. Your nurse says you have experience with bullet wounds, Dr. Kai. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. I did rounds in the ER.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of Professor Hudson if you’ll stay with Peter.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s good to have you on board, Dr. Nadales.”

  “My pleasure. Becky is here as well. Is there anything else you need right now?”

  “A quick blood type on Peter—so we can get another donor lined up.”

  “You got it, Doc,” Becky says. “I’ll be ready the moment the door opens.”

  “And the pharmacy has tPA,” Dr. Nadales says, “Dr. Hudson is within the time window, so I’ll give it to him as soon as the airlock clears.”

  “So who flew the plane?” Becky asks, her voice rising.

  “I did,” Shannon says, her hand on Peter’s good shoulder. “It was a piece of pie right up until the fuel got low and the flaps wouldn’t go down.”

  “Couldn’t have d-done it better m-myself,” Madders says from the office chair he’s sitting in.

  We wait ten seconds for the inner door to open, and then an attractive woman about my age rushes toward Madders. She swabs his arm with alcohol and gives him the anticoagulant injection.

  Mindy comes in right behind her, and she gives Shannon a quick hug. “Oh my God, you have to tell me everything!”

  We hear barking, and a moment later, Bearhart comes zooming into the airlock. Shannon scoops him up into a hug and lets him lick her face.

  Diego steps in, looking older and thinner than the last time I saw him. He smiles when he sees Shannon with the dog and then pins his gaze on me.

  “Thank you,” he mouths and then bows his head.

  I nod and return his smile.

  Shannon puts Bearhart down, and Diego gives her a hug. “It’s good to have you back, Shannon.” He rests his hand on Peter’s shoulder.
“Thanks for taking care of her, mae.”

  Becky hustles in, pushing a portable IV with oxygen attached and carrying latex gloves.

  Diego takes hold of the chair Madders is in and nods at me. “We’ll talk later?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say and then address Shannon. “Keep pressure on this for me.”

  She moves around to Peter’s other side, holding the blood-soaked bandage against the gunshot wound.

  “Get that mask on him, Becky.”

  She follows orders, her eyes wide.

  Becky puts the gloves on me, starts the oxygen, and then does a quick blood draw while I insert the IV.

  She hands me a syringe. “Morphine. I had to guess his weight.”

  I nod and add the painkiller to Peter’s IV. “Everything’s going to be okay, Peter. Hang in there for a little bit longer.”

  He blinks his acknowledgment.

  “Follow the red line on the floor,” Becky says. “Mindy will take you to the OR. I’ll be there with another blood donor in ten minutes.” She rushes off with the blood sample.

  I check that the IV is dripping and the oxygen is flowing. “Let’s go.”

  As we wheel Peter down a long hallway, his eyelids flutter shut and then his hand falls limp on the gurney. For the first time since he was shot, I see tears trickle down Shannon’s cheeks.

  She bites her lip and turns to me. “Can you save him, Mom?”

  I nod, blinking back my own tears. “Peter’s going to be fine, baby. We’re all going to be just fine.”

  42

  Out of Time

  Diego

  I type on the keyboard attached to the time machine, Matt sitting next to me on his relocated hospital bed and kibitzing. We’ve been at it for the better part of two days—Matt making suggestions while I try things out. But for all our combined efforts, we haven’t managed to get so much as a single status light to blink.